CHAPTER NINETEEN | DUKE
There must have been a whole damn litter in that storm drain. I pulled out a total of eight wiggling, shivering, filthy little furballs, and Beck carried each one back to the ambulance to clean it off and swaddle it in a blanket.
It was after midnight by the time we wrapped up the rescue mission. We had solved the blockage in the storm drain, but we had no idea what to do with the puppies. They were resilient little fucks, but they obviously needed some sort of medical attention.
Troy was about to radio to dispatch for Animal Control, but Beck stopped him. She had gotten in contact with a 24-hour emergency animal clinic across town, and she argued that if the puppies wanted a fighting chance, that was their best bet.
Since I was off-duty anyways, I had offered to help her transport the puppies to the clinic.
It was nearly dawn by the time we made it back to the apartment. By then the storm had finally let up and the grey clouds had started to dissipate, revealing patches of clear sky tinted red from the sunrise.
“Home sweet home,” I grunted when we pulled into the parking lot outside of our apartment. The asphalt felt soggy under my feet when I climbed out of the car and walked around to the passenger side, popping open the door for Beck.
The gesture made her narrow her eyes at me, but she spared me any snide commentary as she climbed out of the car and followed me across the parking lot.
We crossed the lobby of the apartment building and climbed into an elevator. The doors sealed shut behind us, locking us together in a vault of silence and still air. I leaned back against the glass walls as the elevator dragged us up.
We had both been moving non-stop all night. Between the rain and the rescue and the puppies, there hadn’t been any time for awkwardness or hard feelings.
But now that the chaos of last night was behind us, there was nothing left to distract us from the glaring unsettled tension between us. I thought about that kiss… then I thought about how Beck had called me a ‘mistake.’
I glanced across the elevator and wondered what Beck was thinking.
“You look like Spiderman,” she joked suddenly, breaking the silence. I was caught off guard, but when I glanced down at the red thermal shirt I was wearing, I saw that she was right.
My turnout gear would have kept me bone dry in the rain, but I had offered my coat to Beck back at the scene. She had needed it more than I did; the rain had soaked through her EMT uniform like it was made out of black Kleenex.
Without my turnout coat, my thermal shirt had taken the full brunt of the storm. Now the wet waffle-knit fabric clung to the muscles like Spiderman’s second skin.
“Then I guess it’s a good thing you don’t look like Mary Jane,” I joked dryly.
“Why’s that?”
“Because I’d hate to have to kiss you in the rain.”
Beck’s face went red but before she could respond, the elevator made a ping and the doors slid open. She immediately stormed out, stomping down the hallway towards the apartment door. When she got there, she turned towards me and glared.
“I don’t have my keys,” she said. “I left them at the office…”
“Check the left inside pocket,” I nodded to my turnout coat. She reached inside and found my keyring, then she fumbled to unlock the door to our apartment. Once the door popped open, she shouldered her way inside and left the keys dangling from the lock.
I waited a few seconds before following her into the apartment. The soles of her non-slip work boots squealed over the hardwood floors as she stomped towards her bedroom. Through the apartment walls I heard the metallic squeak of taps being turned, then the shower faucet rumbled on from the bathroom.
I was leaning against the wall and tugging my boots off when I heard Beck’s footsteps thunder through the floorboards as she stomped back towards me.
“For the record,” she snapped, “you didn’t seem to hate kissing me on Friday night.”
I dropped my boots on the floor without saying a word, then I made my way towards the kitchen. Beck followed me, watching with her hands planted on her hips as I opened the closet at the edge of the kitchen to reveal a stacked washer/dryer unit.
I popped open the round door on the front of the washing machine, then I started to peel off my socks.
“Admit it!” she demanded.
“Admit what?” I glanced up at her and sighed.
“Admit that you didn’t hate kissing me.”
“I kissed you because you asked me to,” I reminded her.
“You could have said no!” she kicked off her own work shoes, then she peeled off her socks and tossed them into the washer. They landed in a wet heap on top of mine.
“Why are you so worked about it, anyways?” I demanded. “You’re the one who said it was a mistake.”
“It was a mistake!”
“Great, so we’re in agreement then,” I snapped the suspenders of my turnout pants off my shoulders. “It was a horrible mistake, and we both hated it.”
I pulled up the hem of my thermal and peeled the sticky wet fabric away from my skin. The shirt had left a web of dewdrops on my skin, and Beck couldn’t stop herself from staring.
I saw her swallow heavily, then she silently started to undo the buttons of her soggy black EMT shirt.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Getting out of these wet clothes,” she kept her blue eyes locked on me as she made it to the bottom button, then it was my turn to stare as she let the shirt fall open over her chest as she wiggled her arms free from the sleeves. Her tits were strangled under a tight black sports bra, but I could see her nipples straining through the damp spandex.
All of the heat in my body immediately swarmed to my dick, and I felt my shaft stiffen under the weight of my Nomex pants.
She tossed her shirt into the washing machine, then she moved on to her pants.
“The thing is,” she said, undoing the button at her waist, “you never actually said that it was a mistake. I did.”
“What’s your point?” I asked.
“My point is that I don’t think you actually hated kissing me at all,” she pressed her lips into a smirk and stared up at me. She rolled her pants slowly down over her hips, revealing a tight pair of black panties. Of course they were fucking soaked, just like the rest of her.
I felt my heartbeat throb through my cock, and I was grateful for the Nomex turnout pants; they were the only thing hiding how hard this fucked up conversation was making me.
She threw the pants into the wash, then she strung her thumbs under the waistband of her panties and blinked up at me.
“Say it.”
“What?”
“Say that you hated kissing me. If that’s how you really feel, then say it.”
“We were drunk, and it was a stupid thing to do…” I said.
“That’s not what I asked.”
I glanced down at her and I felt the chill of her ice blue eyes. It felt like all of the water droplets on my chest turned to frost, and I shivered in the kitchen.
“Tell me that you hated it,” she dared me in a low whisper. “Tell me that you don’t want to kiss me again. Tell me that it was a mistake.”
“You first,” I retorted.
My heartbeat sounded like a basketball being dribbled across my skull. I was angry and defensive and horny as fucking hell, all at the same time. The glimmer in her eye told me that she knew it, too.
She reached towards me and hooked her fingers into the waistband of my turnout pants, then she jerked me towards her. Her chin was tilted up, and I could feel her shallow breaths flutter over my bare chest.
“I didn’t hate it,” she said. “I don’t think it was a mistake. And… I do want you to kiss me again.”
“What is this? Two truths and a lie?” I blinked down at her, confused.
She released her grip on my waistband and took a step back.
“That’s for you to figure out,” she smirked, then she turned on her heel and pranced away. I watched her strut across the kitchen, twisting the bra up over her shoulders and discarding it on the wooden floor. Her dirty blonde curls fell over her bare back, and then she traced her palms down over her hips and started to peel down those panties.
Then she disappeared through the bedroom door.
Fuck…
I stared after her for several seconds before I realized that she had stepped into my bedroom, not hers.
Still wearing my Nomex pants, I stumbled forward and followed the trail of wet footsteps that she had left on the hardwood floor. I followed the trail to my bedroom, and I found her panties discarded in front of the bathroom door.
The bathroom door had been left ajar, and coils of white steam slipped through the crack. I hesitated, trying to figure out whether or not this was all some kind of sadistic, fucked up trap.
Then I decided I didn’t give a shit, and I pushed open the bathroom door and stepped inside.
The shower was a glass cube in the corner of the bathroom. Behind the glass walls, Beck was standing under the stream of water that poured from the chrome rainfall showerhead.
Water trailed down her collarbone and circled around the peaks of her perfect breasts. She had dark swollen nipples that looked like raspberries, the same shade of pink as her lips.
Her body was perfection; long, lean, and elegant… the kind of elegance that you couldn’t fake with stilettos or expensive lipstick.
She wasn’t naked, she was nude.
She wasn’t Beck, she was Olivia.
I was still wearing my turnout pants, but I didn’t care. I strode across the bathroom and stepped into the shower.
In one swift movement I gripped her around the waist and swept her off her feet, pressing her up against the glass shower wall. Her hands clasped onto my shoulders and she gasped, blinking down at me under the curtain of her blonde curls.
I pressed my body against her, so that she was sandwiched between me and the glass wall, and I felt her legs coil under my waist.
My hands slid around her thighs, gripping onto her.
“I fucking loved kissing you,” I growled through the shower water that was streaming down around us. “I never thought it was a mistake, and I never stopped wanting to do it again…”
She dragged her tongue across her raspberry lips, and then her hand clasped around the back of my neck and she started to pull me closer. Her eyes fluttered shut and her lips spread apart, and I braced myself for the taste of her.
I felt her lips press against mine. Even in the shower, she still tasted like summer rain.
Her arms wrapped around my neck and her bare skin pressed against mine. My hands slipped up the underside of her thigh, and I felt a different kind of wetness as my fingertips slid over the pulsing hot slit of her pussy.
Her hips bucked up and she gasped as my fingers began to slip between her lips.
Then the hot water pouring down from the shower faucet suddenly went ice cold.
Every water drop stung like a pinprick as it pelted me. The jolt of freezing cold rippled through my skin and my entire body went stiff and numb.
“Holy shit, it’s freezing!” she squealed, shivering against my chest.
“I got you,” I said. I tightened my grip around her waist, then I carried her out of the ice-cold shower.